#megafires

[rjzimmerman]

Six and a half minutes reminding us about this year’s wildfires in Washington, Oregon and California, with some exhausting scenes and solid explanations of the reasons why these fires are happening. One flaw is the absence of the fires in Colorado, which were also horrible.

[currentclimate]

California wildfire likely to grow from wind, low humidity

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The destruction wrought by a wind-driven wildfire in the mountains northeast of Los Angeles approached 156 square miles (404 square kilometers) Sunday, burning structures, homes...

The destruction wrought by a wind-driven wildfire in the mountains northeast of Los Angeles approached 156 square miles (404 square kilometers) Sunday, burning structures, homes and a nature center in a famed Southern California wildlife sanctuary in foothill desert communities.

The blaze, known as the Bobcat Fire, is expected to grow through Sunday and Monday as critical fire weather conditions continued due to gusty wind and low humidity. Additional evacuation warnings were issued Sunday afternoon.

[insightfultake]

Ending Megafires Before They Begin: How AI Is Turning the Sky Into a Firefighter

Wildfires are no longer seasonal disasters. They are becoming faster, larger, and far more destructive than ever before. What once took days to escalate can now spiral out of control within hours. The traditional firefighting methods are struggling to keep up.

[loudlylovingreview]

Video: The Growing Megafire Crisis -- And How to Contain It

Megafires, or fires that burn more than 100,000 acres, are becoming more frequent worldwide, wreaking havoc on landscapes and communities — and fire experts say the problem is only going to get worse. George T. Whitesides is focused on fighting these devastating natural disasters through innovative technologies and intentional changes to how we build communities. He presents three emerging…

Video: The Growing Megafire Crisis -- And How to Contain It

[rjzimmerman]

How Megafires Are Remaking the World

In our Pyrocene age, enormous wildfires aren’t merely damaging ecosystems but transforming them.

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

Fire is a natural phenomenon; some species actually benefit from its effects and even those that don’t can be remarkably resilient in the face of flames. But as fires intensify, they are beginning to outstrip nature’s ability to bounce back. “Not all fires have the same impact,” said Morgan Tingley, an ecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “These megafires are not good for ecosystems.”

Megafires, which dwarf typical wildfires in size, have an immediate ecological toll, killing individual plants and animals that might have survived more contained blazes. In the longer term, changing fire patterns could drive some species out of existence, transform landscapes and utterly remake ecosystems.

This incendiary age, which some scientists have called the Pyrocene, could lead to “a wholesale conversion of what habitats are where on the planet,” Dr. Hodges said. “Right now, everybody is talking about fires and smoke and who dies, because of the immediacy of this fire year. But really, truly, the long-term consequences are much more severe and sustained.”

Fire has been a planetary phenomenon for hundreds of millions of years, and plants and animals that evolved in fire-prone regions have adapted to periodic conflagrations. Some trees have roots that can re-sprout even if the trunk burns, while the mere smell of smoke will rouse some animals from torpor, a form of light hibernation.

But in many regions and ecosystems, fires are becoming larger and more severe. In the United States, wildfires burn far more land today than they did three decades ago, especially in Western states. Globally, the risk of catastrophic fires could increase by more than 50 percent by the end of the century, the United Nations reported.

Climate change is partly to blame, scientists said, but so are other factors, such as the expansion of highly flammable invasive grasses, which helped the deadly fires in Maui spread so quickly. More than a century of fire suppression has also left some forests thick with trees, giving flames more fuel. “When fires burn, they burn with so much intensity,” said Chris French, a deputy chief of the National Forest System in the United States.

[gwydionmisha]

Megafires Are Destroying the World's Biggest Tropical Wetlands

CW: Dead Animals

[dtegarden]

How to help birds during these devastating wildfires

How to help birds during these devastating wildfires

Megafires in California are shattering records, smoky days are degrading the air quality and the respiratory health of millions of people, as well as wildlife. Wildfires are posing a new stressor to birds who are already threatened by habitat loss, climate change, and pollution.

Various species are on the move to escape the flames and migrate. However, many wild food sources and rest areas are…

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[aaronstjames]

They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen? — ProPublica

They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen?

This is a story about frustration, about watching the West burn when you fully understand why it’s burning — and understand why it did not n